


Homecoming

by onceuponanevilangel



Series: Cartinelli Week 2016 [5]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cartinelli Week, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7641547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponanevilangel/pseuds/onceuponanevilangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 times Peggy wasn't sure she would ever find a home and 1 time she finally did. </p><p>Cartinelli Week Day 7: Free Day</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever stop writing 5+1 fics? Probably not. Enjoy!

1.

Peggy’s first night in New York, she didn’t sleep.

She spent the night in a dingy hotel in Brooklyn where the bedsprings squeaked every time she moved and the blankets were stiff and scratchy, but it didn’t really matter because Peggy didn’t sleep at all.

They told her the war was over and Colonel Phillips had set her up with an SSR position in the city, but Peggy was still restless, pacing up and down the length of the room before finally standing in front of the window and just staring at the lights of the city below.

It was so beautiful, so peaceful, and yet all Peggy felt when she looked at it was sick.

For so long she had fantasized about going home after the war as almost all of the other soldiers did too, but when she actually gone back to England, all she found were two graves with her parent’s names and a bombed-out city that felt more like a prison than a home.

She wasn’t really sure that New York was much better, but at least it was a start.

2.

Peggy met Colleen on the bus. Every morning when Peggy was just heading off to work, Colleen was just going home. Little streaks of grease decorated her face and hands and there was a kind of exhaustion in her eyes that Peggy recognized from soldiers during the war, but she was friendly and sweet and after about two weeks of near-daily bus conversations, she asked Peggy to be her roommate.

Peggy was more than a little taken aback, but then again, she was tired of living in the hotel room and Colleen was nice enough, so she agreed.

Colleen’s apartment was small with a Murphey bed, a little bathroom and kitchenette, and a decent-sized closet. There wasn’t space for much of anything else, which was fine with Peggy as she didn’t have much of anything to take up more space.

It was rather nice to have a place to sleep where the sheets smelled vaguely like Colleen’s perfume and where she would sometimes come home to find that Colleen had left her dinner on the stove. For a while, she could almost believe that she was really home again.

3.

After Colleen died, Peggy couldn’t even stand to be in the apartment alone.

Jarvis was supposed to come with her to help her pick up her things, but he cancelled on her at the last minute—something about a call from Howard—so Peggy found herself an hour later just staring at her hands folded on the automat counter.

Angie wasn’t working so early in the morning and Peggy had never found herself missing the bubbly waitress’s company as much as she was at that moment. At least Angie would have been able to take her mind off of things and if there was anything Peggy wanted, it was to be able to forget the sight of Colleen lying there on the bed with a bullet in her head.

It was a cruel reminder really that Peggy couldn’t allow herself to get too comfortable. The war might be over, but there were still battles to be fought and far too often, Peggy was finding herself right in the middle of them.

4.

The Griffith was probably the nicest place that Peggy had stayed in for as long as she could remember. It wasn’t the nicest apartment, really. It was just a small room with a bathroom and a closet, but it had enough space to remind Peggy that she didn’t own much in the way of personal things.

What made the Griffith special, though, was the girls.

Peggy had spent a good part of her childhood at boarding school, but none of the girls she had known back them were anything like the Griffith girls.

Carol who lived directly below Peggy was an expert with a crochet hook and when she overheard Peggy mentioning a chill to Angie over breakfast one morning, she had shown up at Peggy’s door the next morning with a colorful afghan.

Vera, Carol’s next door neighbor, had connections with a few shops nearby and she regularly took orders to smuggle in alcohol, day-old bakery cast-offs, and even some…private magazines right under Miriam’s nose.

Gloria had lived all over the city and knew every single street and alley in all the boroughs like the back of her hand. She was especially well-versed in what she and the other girls referred to as the ‘violet places’ and it didn’t take Peggy long to figure out what was meant by that.

The girls had made themselves a family and they immediately accepted Peggy as one of their own. She might not feel safe getting too close to them, but damn if she hadn’t realized how good it felt to be wanted.

5.

Peggy’s first night in Howard’s penthouse apartment she didn’t sleep.

The bed was softer than anything she had slept on since she was a child and the sheets were soft and smooth and probably made of silk that was more expensive than Peggy’s entire wardrobe, but none of that mattered because Peggy wasn’t sleeping.

Finally, after nearly an hour of trying to rest, she just gave up and paced around the spacious bedroom for a while before finally settling in front of the window and just gazing at the city below.

For so long both during the war and in the aftermath, she had dreamed of going home and now Howard had offered to let her stay here in this ridiculously expensive apartment, but Peggy wasn’t quite sure whether she even wanted to. She had grown rather used to having company in the past few months and the thought of coming back to an empty house every day wasn’t all that enticing.

Despite the fact that Peggy had just saved New York City and quite possibly the rest of the free world, she felt more alone that she had in a very long time.

+1.

It was pouring rain and almost totally dark outside by the time Peggy got home and little drops were pooling around her feet as she stood in the elevator. When the doors reopened though, it was to a bright, warm apartment that was filled with music and smelled vaguely like fresh cookies.

Peggy took off her coat and shoes and padded her way into the kitchen, leaning in the doorway and just watching as Angie twirled around the kitchen with a wooden spoon as a microphone. When she noticed Peggy watching her, she paused just long enough to steal a quick kiss before continuing her impromptu performance.

Peggy felt a strange fluttering in her chest and her lips twitched as she kept watching. Finally, though, Angie took her hand and dragged her more fully into the kitchen, spinning her around and discarding her spoon to sing entirely to Peggy.

It had been a very long time since Peggy had felt at home, but she was pretty sure that if this wasn’t what it was supposed to feel like, then surely this was the next best thing.


End file.
